


I Have a History of Taking Off My Shirt

by queenklu



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-27
Updated: 2010-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:02:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenklu/pseuds/queenklu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny is damaged; what else is new?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Have a History of Taking Off My Shirt

The first words out of Steve’s mouth are, “What are you doing?” and the second words—or the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth words if Danny’s counting right—are, “Where is your tie?”

“You don’t wear a tie to do home renovation,” Danny points out, loudly because he can, “Unless, wait, everything’s backwards on Hawaii, maybe you _do._ ”

“Whose home are you renovating?” Steve has the sheer balls to ask, like he isn’t waist deep in plywood and drywall and climbing down an actual ladder with an actual hammer in his hand and an actual tool belt slung low around his hips.

“I’m going to pretend there are paint fumes going to your head right now, and you get a free pass on asking me that question. Who the hell’s house do you think?”

“I think you usually have better things to do on the weekends,” Steve says, flipping the hammer by the handle. Just in case there was anyone around who didn’t think this freak right here is pumped full of testosterone twice daily and marinated in manly SEAL-given mojo. Danny resists (okay, maybe not so much) the urge to roll his eyes.

“Grace is on an overnight field trip.” He spreads his hands wide to show just how pleased he is about that, then brings them together. “So I’m yours until midnight when this coach turns back into a pumpkin, Princess. C’mon, give me something to do.”

For a moment Danny is sure that Steve is going to send him packing, because he’s got his Pseudo Only Child Face on—the one he wears when he’s gotta do everything himself, and be the best while doing it—and it makes Danny want to punch someone a little. If Danny’s apartment had been shot to pieces would Steve let him get away with fixing it by himself? Fuck no. Not that Steve would do much in the way of home improvement, being too busy hauling Danny to a different “better” apartment complex kicking and screaming, but that’s not the point.

“Alright.” Steve hands him the hammer and the face is gone, or muted, shuffled back into the deck. “I’ll bite. Why midnight?”

“Because midnight is the time Danno needs to go to bed to be anything like social with his little girl on Sunday when he picks her up at seven. _A.M._ Now just—tell me where you want me, and we can get this show on the road.”

Steve sort of coughs, or maybe laughs, some aborted noise in the back of his throat that Danny squints at, really. Because what the hell.

“Would you rather hire Kamekona’s brothers?” he prompts, “Because I’m offering free labor here—“

“Nah, no, come on, man,” Steve says, and damn all Hawaiians for their tactile natures he does not need Steve’s hands settling on his shoulders like his feathers need to be soothed or something, and he does not need Steve staring down at him all grateful and blue-eyed. “Yes, I want you here. I want your help. Grab a ladder.”

“Oh, haha, very funny,” Danny grumbles when Steve drags over a sawhorse like he expects Danny to stand on it, because just. No.

And Steve, damn him, laughs. “Come on, you giant baby.”

“Giant, yes, exactly. Too big for your rickety little sawhorse.”

“You want me to take it?” Steve’s eyebrows are climbing right up his stupid face.

“Yes, actually, I do. I want to stand here on this nice and sturdy piece of equipment and laugh in your face when that thing snaps and you break every bone in your body.”

“Fair enough,” Steve shrugs, then, “You need to climb higher anyway.”

Danny is going to kill him.

“Because you’re, you know,” Steve says, and mimes a word.

And they will never find the body.

~*~

This was a stupid idea. Why didn’t Danny decide to learn how to make fluffy little French pasties on his unexpected day off? Or climb some unpronounceable mountain and throw himself over a cliff? It would have to be less torturous than an entire day spent next to Commander Steve McGarrett who—SURPRISE—lost his shirt within ten minutes, and is now looking like some sort of Surfer God who fell to earth specifically to fuck up one Detective Danny Williams and his life, his orientation, and his actual will to live.

Alright, the orientation thing is a bit overstretching things, whatever. Truth is, there was a reason things went so spectacularly south with Rachel, though it wasn’t because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. But just because his pants stayed zipped doesn’t mean his mouth didn’t get thoroughly tongue-fucked by a frat boy on a night Danny got so drunk he couldn’t even remember his home address to tell the cabbie he eventually found to get him the hell away from that bar.

Good times. He’d thrown up three times on the ride home—out the window, which was the only reason the cabbie didn’t leave his ass on the curb—and once more on the lawn when it sunk in just how badly he needed to tell Rachel.

So whatever, the last time he so much as looked at a guy hit his world like Hiroshima and left every surviving person chock-full of radiation. Danny can roll with it. He’s _had to_. So he can roll with Steve fucking shirtless kamikaze McGarrett, as long as he doesn’t, you know, actually _roll_ with him. Danny is damaged; what else is new.

“You’re sweating through that tee, brah, take it off,” Steve says, reaching up to pry free another board and completely coincidentally showing off every single muscle from his forearms to the curve in the small of his back.

“No thank you,” Danny says, words just a little too small in his mouth.

Oh yeah. Not tumbling Steve onto the sawdusty couch and rubbing all over his sweat-slicked body? Totally not even an issue.

He’s a professional.

“Seriously.” Steve drags the back of his hand across his forehead. “You get heatstroke and die I’ll just leave you where you drop.”

“You would. You would leave me in the middle of your living room. Dead.”

“Yep.”

Danny stares at him. “I would stink.”

“Not more than you do right now.” Steve grins, that sweet one where his eyes look sad until you look closer and realize it’s something like _fond._

“Fuck you,” Danny blurts, heart thumping harder than it should and is this what a heatstroke feels like? Fuck. He strips out of his limp shirt and drags it under his pits and over his chest, wadding it up in a ball to throw at Steve’s head. “I smell like a field of fucking daisies. And— _plumeria_.”

“Oh god,” Steve chokes, dramatically dodging out of the way. “Maybe flowers smell different in Jersey.”

It has not escaped Danny’s notice that he’s now just as shirtless as Steve, but he’s not going to think about it. At all. Or hunch his shoulders like some virgin preteen who doesn’t want the hot girl judging his nipples.

“Nice,” Steve says, and there is nothing on his face or in his tone to suggest he didn’t just check Danny out and give him a nod of approval. Because he just _did._

“Okay, enough,” Danny snaps, dropping his hammer on Steve’s kitchen counter, freeing up both hands so he can express just how much this pisses him off. “You know, if I was a girl right now? I’d be all over you.”

That’s a smack upside Steve’s funny bone, by the looks of it. “All over me?”

“Yes, all over you—for _sexual harassment_ , pal! You think you could get away with saying half the shit you do to me with Kono? She would kick your ass six ways to Sunday, and then Chin would offer to finish the job.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Steve’s hands are up like he’s backing off but he’s _stepping forward_ and how dumb does he seriously think Danny is? Danny draws himself up to his full five-foot-fuck-all and glares as hard as he can, stopping Steve in his tracks. “I’m sorry, man.” Steve takes a breath, and he looks sorry, but he also looks like he doesn’t think this can be taken seriously, and fuck fuck fuck it maybe he’s right. “I didn’t mean it like— I didn’t realize it was bugging you so bad.”

 _I didn’t mean it_. And maybe that’s Danny’s problem right there. But his attention gets snagged on that last sentence, and now Steve’s looking like he’s trying hard not to get his hackles up over something Danny never meant to convey. Which, great, he’s demoted himself from Steve’s occasional flirt-buddy to That Homophobic Asshole I Have To Work With. Fantastic.

“I’m sorry,” Danny says, arms swinging uselessly at his sides. “Fuck, man, it’s not you, okay?” _Oh, shut up,_ some frantic voice in his head that sounds a lot like Rachel whispers, _shut up_ now, _Danny_ , _don’t ruin it._

“I know you would never—“ he fumbles out, because he’s always had a bad history of not listening to Rachel when it counts. “I’ve just had my share of shitty experiences with guys who act like they’re coming on, only to run like the hounds of hell are on their heels when you start to take them seriously.” Exodus partner number one, who at least had the decency to keep his yap shut about his reasons for applying to a different department; in all fairness, the guy had both hands down Danny's pants before deciding he needed more than two beers to be queer.

“Alright!” Danny claps his hands together, sending up a shower of sawdust that seems barely enough to make Steve blink. He can’t quite meet Steve’s eyes, but he doesn’t have to look to know Steve is staring, and possibly not breathing. “I realize this little revelation wasn’t on today’s agenda. Do you need some time to wrap your head around the fact your partner likes the occasional dick or you gonna let me stick with the free labor?”

“No, I’m good,” Steve chokes out, just a tad too fast.

It’s a little bit funny. “You sure?”

“I said I was sure.”

“Yeah, but you don’t look—“

“God damn it, Danny,” Steve starts in his Mainlander Idiot tone of voice, and it’s so normal Danny can’t help but grin. “Think I’d let you off that easy,” Steve grumbles, then, “Get your ass back up that ladder.”

Danny rolls his eyes and tries to ignore the froofy feeling of relief expanding in his stomach. “Sir, yes sir.”

“You know—“ Steve starts and Danny bites back a sigh. Because it couldn’t be easy, just this once.

“Can you—just spare me the story about how you’ve worked with some don’t-ask-don’t-tell repressed SEALs who were the best men you ever yadda yadda yadda? I know I’m good at my job, I don’t need you to tell me other male-oriented guys were also good at their jobs, can we just focus on your damn bullet-riddled house for ten minutes?”

“I wasn’t gonna—“

“You so were.”

Steve scowls. It’s almost a pout. And if Danny can keep his observations superficial at best, maybe he’ll make it through the rest of today intact.

He snags the hammer back and climbs up high enough to wrench free the last couple of swiss cheese boards, tucking them carefully under one arm and counting all the fun ways he’s going to be picking splinters out of his skin in the near future, and it’s all well and good, really, except. Steve is too quiet. Steve has been too quiet for a while now. Steve has never let Danny rant at him for as long as he just did unless he’s tuning him out, or he genuinely thinks he deserves being chewed out over whatever it is. Neither of these options works for Danny. At all.

And he’s still _quiet._

Danny sneaks exactly one glance on his way back down the ladder and just about drops the wood on his feet. Because that—

“What is that face?”

“What face?” Steve demands instantly, too fast to be anything but just as tense as Danny knows he is. “You always think I have a face—“

“It’s your I’mma Shoot a Bitch Face, and seeing as I’m the only other person in this room I think I deserve the right to be concerned.”

“What?” His nose scrunches, like Danny has just added guava juice to the list of stuff he doesn’t like about Hawaii. “Danny, no—“

“So what the hell is—oh no.”

“ _What?”_ His shoulders are high, defensive, faint traces of shootabitch around the eyes that are working really hard to project innocence and Not Look At Danny.

“Seriously,” Danny says, the-rough-around-the-edges tone he uses when he’s waiting for Steve to realize how stupid he is, “you are not going on a killing spree to avenge my inability to make good personal choices. None of those guys were even worth it.”

“Still,” Steve says, suddenly easing his body into something that might be reassuring to people who don’t know lethal killing machine when they see it. “If there ever was someone, Danny, someone who—“

“You know it’s, ah, just so damn sweet when you defend my honor, honey,” Danny drawls as tonelessly as he can. “But threaten anyone from my past again and I’ll punch you in the dick.”

Now Steve just looks angry, which Danny can’t get his head around. Declining an offer of cold-blooded murder of a few run of the mill homophobes should not earn him the Aneurysm Face with a side of Constipation. Like Steve thinks Danny’s some kind of victim, here.

“You know, I was thinking,” Danny says, loud enough that it might derail this conversation before he actually does take a swing at Steve’s crotch. “Some of these boards? Only got a couple holes punched in ‘em. There’s a good six inches on this one if we hack off the bit that got uzi-ed—between that and the simply stellar lumber you got through Kamekona, we might be able to make a whole wall.”

Steve can take a hint (when he wants to), even though it looks like backing off this time is something he’s only going to do until the exact moment he gets his grubby fingers on enough evidence to make a file he can press into Danny’s hands and say ‘Look, here, this guy, eighth grade, called you fag and pushed you into a locker, now living with a wife and kids in Brooklyn. I can take him out by Saturday.’

But what he _says_ —what Danny is trying really hard to take into account here—is, “Yeah, I think there’s a skill saw in the garage. I’ll get it.”

“Good.” Steve is already leaving, so Danny has to half-shout the rest in the direction of his back. “I might even let you use the ladder.”

Steve mutters something which is probably not English, flipping him off.

~*~

Steve has a look about him which is more Game Facey when he comes back a handful of minutes later, like he had a good talk with his inner self and settled some shit that needed settling, so Danny lets himself relax into the work. Danny never… He’s not good at thinking about things until they’re happening, so he never spent much time wondering how Steve might take the news that just got dropped in his lap, but some part of Danny isn’t surprised at all that Steve seems to be handling it okay. He isn’t tensing up, second guessing every move he makes or checking the words that come out of his mouth for double entendres—he’s exactly normal, exactly the unphasable Steve Danny’s been working with for months. Nothing’s different.

Nothing at all.

Steve still walks too close, bumping shoulders when there’s plenty of room to move around, nudging to get his attention instead of telling him about the special termite repellent like a normal person, fingers touching a little too long when he passes tools. He gives Danny shit about his tan lines, all the while letting his gaze linger over Danny’s chest like it’s his own personal visual playground, but it’s _calculated_. There’s a disconnect in his eyes and it’s driving Danny bugfuck quicker than the fact that he just told the guy to back off with the flirting, and Steve _hasn’t._

Danny just about breaks Steve’s fingers when he oh-so-casually swats him on the ass as he’s walking by, because, “What the _actual fuck, McGarrett?_ I am _running a band saw._ ”

“Skill—“ Steve starts, because he’s a moron, and Danny rips the cord out and twists Steve’s hand back, because he’s not too bright either.

The SEAL training kicks in lightning fast, and for a moment Danny thinks he’s going to be right back in that first day, his arm straining not to break in Steve’s grip as he put him a notch down in the pecking order, right before Danny punched him in the face. It’s not a nice place to be, not a good thought to have that they’ve come so very _not far at all_ , that Danny almost doesn’t notice that the worst Steve does is get him in some sort of body lock against the wall. His arms are shoved up by his head, some knot so complicated he doesn’t know exactly where his wrists are, and Steve’s chest is bare and sweaty and close enough to touch and—something in him shuts down.

Because you shut down to keep your weaknesses hidden, and this right here? Fuck it, _Steve_ , just—in general? Is a pretty huge weakness.

“Did you have sand in your ears earlier?” Danny’s voice is quiet, calm—he’s surprised how calm—and his gaze is just a little out of focus in regards to Steve’s face. He doesn’t want to see this expression later and remember what’s going to happen. It’ll kill him.

“No.” Steve’s head shakes, hard. “No, I didn’t. But I’m pretty sure you told me not to flirt unless I mean it, Danno, and this? This is me, meaning it.”

Oh goddamn it. ‘ _Danno’_ snaps him right out of his comfortable disconnect and shoves him blind and scrambling into reality, and this just can’t be happening. _Can’t be happening._ Steve McGarrett cannot be looking at him like this, not with those eyes, not with the face that says Danny’s the whole fucking world if he’d only let Steve show him.

“Is this some kind of sick—“ but he knows it’s not, even before Steve shoves forward and gets his mouth on Danny’s, kissing him reckless and dirty.

Steve’s lips are scorching, which shouldn’t be a surprise because everything in this damn state is fucking sweltering, but Danny feels like he needs to slather sunscreen on the inside of his ribs and he can’t breathe, his air keeps stuttering in his chest and against Steve’s mouth and he can’t process, can’t figure out what Steve’s thinking so he can brace himself for the moment everything goes wrong.

It hits him like a gut-punch as Steve licks at his mouth for entry, and Danny jerks his head to the side even though it means mashing their noses together hard enough that it hurts. Steve jerks back with a startled hiss, just far enough that he can see Danny’s face, and Danny keeps his gaze locked on the floor.

“Look,” he grinds out, “I know you just lost your Navy buddy—“

Steve lets go of him like he’s on _fire,_ hands curling in the short dark strands of his own hair like it’s either that or—he doesn’t look like he has other options, because his voice is so strangled when it comes out Danny wants to flinch.

“ _Names,”_ Steve snarls out, like this is a reasonable word that means more than it quite obviously does. When Danny just stares at him, though, he gets a finger shoved into his face before it slams down on Steve’s palm. “I want fucking— Jesus, Danny, don’t give me that look, any piece of shit human being who made you—who go you so fucked in the head that you can’t even think I could be kissing you just because I _want_ to— You don’t get to look at me like putting them down won’t be exactly the humane thing to do.”

And. Okay, but. Danny doesn’t really think Steve would literally kill someone for a reason like that. Maybe. But he. And his brain just stutters to a goddamned standstill, grinding to an unoiled halt. He can hear his own breathing loud and ragged, and he thinks that’s Steve’s fault so he does his best to glare, but most of all? Most of all he can feel his fingers curl where they want to be in Steve’s belt loops, holding onto something steady with Steve’s weight back flush against his chest.

“Because the thing, the only thing you should be thinking right now is if, you know, do you want to kiss me back, circle yes or no—“

“Are you seriously giving me lip right now?” Danny asks, but it doesn’t come out half as forceful as he means it to, it comes out weird and affectionate because—because Steve’s usually better at words than this. Danny wants to save him from the embarrassment, really.

“I’ll give you lip any time you want me to!” Steve says like this is a valid argument ender, “You just have to tell me that you want it!”

“I. Just.” Danny’s eyebrows come together, but he knows it’s kind of in a helpless way that means he’s leaning towards Steve like some sort of sad New Jersey flower that’s never seen a Hawaiian sun before. “Jesus, this is such a bad idea.”

“I like bad ideas,” Steve gets out in the narrowing space between them, and then Danny is on him, climbing this idiot like one of those obnoxious palm trees outside because just—screw this against-a-wall shit, he wants—he _wants._ He wants Steve to lose about a foot in height and to fucking act like lifting Danny is more strenuous than breathing and to keep his hands on Danny’s ass and thigh just like that so Danny can work on getting his tongue down Steve’s throat. He wants to kiss Steve without stopping for at least a week, and he wants to get Grace her own dolphin for her birthday, and he wants Step Stan and Rachel to fuck off and leave him with his kid, and Danny is used to never getting what he wants. He doesn’t know if he can trust _this,_ but some deep part of him points out he’s been trusting Steve with a lot more since the moment he met the guy.

And he just _wants._ He wants to frame the grunt he wrings from Steve and hang it on his _wall_.

Steve stumbles back under his weight at least—the man is not inhuman, and Danny may be short but he’s substantial, dammit—and backs into something exactly the height of Danny’s knees where they’re wrapped around Steve’s waist. Danny climbs onto the surface without a second thought, chasing after Steve’s mouth when his ass hits whatever it is and he falls back a little, lying flat _. It’s the dining room table,_ Danny realizes right as Steve shoves his breakfast dishes onto the floor to the tune of shattering pottery. Danny remembers how sturdy it’d looked the first time he saw it. This is a good table. Danny rocks his hips against Steve’s and it doesn’t even wobble _._

Steve wobbles out a groan, though, and Danny grins into his mouth at the feel of all that bare skin rumbling against his own. “Jesus, Danny,” Steve chokes out, “trying to kill me?”

“If you can’t tell what I’m trying to do…” Danny breaks off to suck a mark right into the cradle of where Steve’s shoulder meets his throat, tugging free strings of curses from Steve’s hard-bitten lips. He doesn’t look like the restrain-himself kind of guy, but maybe he’s not used to losing control like this. Danny makes himself hold onto the heady rush of that thought, because right or wrong it feels good, it feels awesome licking at the moans Steve tries to hide behind frustrated growls.

Steve has Danny’s shorts half-way down his thighs with the kind of efficiency that comes from stripping a gun, and then Danny is right there in Steve’s hand, gasping as he ruts into the grip of it. It’s not fair, he hasn’t been touched in ages, Steve is _cheating_. Danny pulls his mouth away from Steve’s skin so he can’t accidentally bite down hard enough to draw blood, trying to get away from that touch before he shoots all over Steve’s naked chest. All he does is shift Steve’s hand down to his balls, tugging and rolling, carding through the soft blond hair. Danny lays every Jersey curse he’s ever heard on Steve’s head, clinging to his dignity by his fingernails.

“…hate you,” he hears himself finish, half doubled over. He’s hardly even touching Steve anymore, braced over him on trembling hands and knees while Steve sucks kisses into the curve of his jaw and works him over with his hands. “God _damn it_ , hate you so much—“

“Tell me what you want,” Steve murmurs, right into the skin under his ear. “Come on, Danno, I’ll give it to you.”

He got his control back somewhere along the line; Danny doesn’t care much, this is almost better. One of them has to know where this is going, and there’s no way it can be Danny right now, he can’t think in complete sentences anymore.

But Steve keeps nuzzling him like an actual seal, and his hand stops stroking, thumb swiping over the tip once before stilling. And suddenly sentences don’t seem so difficult anymore.

Danny grabs as much of Steve’s hair as he can and yanks his head back, even though all it does is make the bastard go all adorably crinkly-eyed with laughter. “I will end you,” Danny growls in the best interrogator voice he can dredge up on short notice. Steve just grins wider, his laugh puffing out almost silent with delight.

“Alright, I got you. Come here,” Steve says, and then there’s a hand in Danny’s hair hauling him down for a kiss while Steve’s other fingers do something—and oh, yes, god, that’s Steve’s cock free, held sweet and dirty against Danny’s, enclosed in the messy wet circle of Steve’s fist. Danny stutters a pretty damn shameless moan against Steve’s lips and can’t help the hand skimming down Steve’s sweat-slicked, quivering side to join the tangle of fingers around their dicks.

He can’t hardly stand it, he’s about to come out of his fucking _skin._ Danny rears up without thinking, despite the needy noise Steve makes and the too-tight grip in his hair and he might stammer out something like, “Hope you don’t think I’m easy,” which, what the fuck, he’s pretty sure he’s sarcastic or at least blood-flow deprived, but Steve bites his lip like military secrets are trying to fight their way out, and that’s— Danny shudders all over with how good that looks, with how good Steve looks, with the way his cock and Danny’s are rutting together in a glide of precome and flushed skin and that’s _it._

He comes so hard the bite of curses in his throat is almost a welcome distraction from how his orgasm punches out of him, Steve’s hand wringing him dry in a quick and rough pull that makes him shout and buck beneath Danny’s thighs— _and that right there is just fucking ridiculous_ , Danny thinks with the few scattered pieces of his brain that still work, as they both spurt come in messy streaks all over Steve’s chest. It’s like some sort of fairy tale, coming at the same time. One not quite fit for Disney Princesses, but still.

Jesus Christ.

Danny’s legs are shaking so much he might as well have run that Peruvian drug lord into the ground a second time, and here’s a dilemma. Steve blinks dark, damp eyelashes at him and Danny isn’t sure he could stand right now if there was a gun pointed at his head, but his knee is going to start screaming the instant the endorphin high crashes and burns. What the hell was he thinking?

Oh, fuck, _what the hell was he thinking?_

 _What—_

Steve’s hands come up to brush the hair out of his eyes and Danny goes still, because. Because one of those hands is absolutely filthy and Steve has an entirely new face on at the moment, one Danny can’t quite put a name to.

Danny twitches away just in case that is the hand Steve used to jerk them off, and something shutters shut in Steve’s eyes. Danny has to fight (again) not to roll his own. Honestly, he has no real right to eye-rolling if he can’t tell left from right anymore.

And Steve must be telepathic or something—mind-reading something they teach in SEAL school—because his expression shifts into fond exasperation as he figures it out and holds up his clean hand for inspection, distracting Danny so he can sit up just enough to wipe his come-sticky palm on Danny’s shorts where they’re bunched around his thighs.

“You did—“ Danny chokes out, and then he glares. His words won’t fit together just right, and like fuck is he going to let that on to McGarrett.

Steve grins like Danny’s a great surf and another day saved and pineapple pizza rolled into one. “Yeah I did,” he agrees, propped up on one shoulder as he toys with Danny’s hair. “Wanna make something of it?”

Danny pulls his lips together and shakes his head, and he might get out a, “Nope,” or two with Steve’s needling coaxing the whole way up, until Danny’s feet find the floor and Steve follows him off the table before it can flip and kill them both, Steve laughing kisses into his mouth, his hair, his cheekbone. It’s…something. Danny’s going to get right up in his face about it as soon as he remembers how. Steve walks right out of his shorts the instant they drop to his ankles, but Danny is really trying to figure out how to tug his own up again. His hands aren’t working right.

“Danny, hey,” Steve says, tilting his head up, worry starting to creep in along his laugh lines. “You okay in there?”

Danny swallows dry, because there is some small not-a-cop, not-a-dad, not-a-grown-up part of him that thinks if he talks this’ll all disappear. But his partner’s waiting on his word, and it’s Steve. Danny trusts him to get them through any sort of vanishing acts.

“What,” he croaks, “What is with. Your goddamn hands on my face, is this supposed to make me feel like the prettiest princess, Princess? Shut up,” he says over Steve’s joyful barking laugh. “Do I go around swatting you on the ass and making you feel like some dainty piece of meat?”

“You call me babe,” Steve points out. “More than once. I have the dates marked down in my diary circled by sparkly hearts.”

Danny feels the flush climbing all the way to his ears. “That’s different.”

“Tell me about it. I have no problem,” Steve all but purrs (damn him damn him damn him) as his arms slide over Danny’s shoulders, circling his head, “being the princess in this relationship. Whatever I need to do to work with your freaky issues with gender roles.”

“I do not have—“

“Focus on the part where I said I want to make this work,” Steve tells him, low murmur, sweet and brilliant smile curling his lips. “Earth to Danno. What do you think?”

“I think.” Danny takes a deep breath, making up for that stutter of time there a moment ago when air stopped being important. Steve doesn’t blink, ocean-blue eyes lapping at the edge of his awareness, not trying to get in. He’ll push, no doubt about it—if Danny says no Steve will definitely say yes, and he’ll keep trying, Danny can see the stubborn streak in the set of his jaw. But it would only be because he knows something Danny might not be ready to admit, and just. God damn fuck McGarrett knowing everything ever.

“I think yeah,” Danny says, nodding, square in Steve’s face. And it’s not what Steve was preparing himself for, that’s for certain. His eyes go wide and his whole face lights up, and this, this is a face Danny wants to remember— _will_ remember, when he’s frustrated or bleeding or being held hostage or all of the above, he’s going to remember this face and probably call himself an idiot, but he’s going to know bone deep that it was worth it.

“This was all just a big giant distraction to get me to stop fixing your house,” Danny says loudly, waving his arms a little as he backs out of Steve’s embrace.

Steve lets go reluctantly, and he’s a distraction all his own standing there naked in the middle of his kitchen. But he clears his throat to hide a grin and says, “Damn. Almost pulled a fast one on you.”

“I’m a sharp cookie, babe, don’t forget it.” Danny plugs the saw back in and feels Steve’s eyes on his bare back the whole time, trailing down to where his shorts are clinging vainly to his hips. “Hey Romeo,” he grunts, and practically feels Steve twitch at getting caught. Danny really does roll his eyes this time. “Come here and help me with this skill saw.”

Steve does. He brushes Danny’s shoulder with his own as he stands beside the work table, runs a hand down Danny’s arm as he steadies the planks for cutting, and bites out happily sarcastic rejoinders to everything Danny throws at him.

 _Okay,_ Danny thinks. _Yeah, okay._

**Author's Note:**

> The End
> 
> This fic can be found [here](http://queenklu.livejournal.com/240865.html) on LJ if you're interested!


End file.
